The Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno state yesterday said its men have killed Ibn Saleh Ibrahim the alleged commander of the Boko Haram who killed retired General Mamman Shuwa two weeks ago.

JTF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa said in a statement that until his death, Ibn Saleh was the commander of the Boko Haram in charge of the north-west and north-eastern parts of Nigeria. He said the combined troops of the JTF Operation Restore Order used helicopters and armoured personnel carriers and launched attacks on the hideouts of suspected gunmen.

He said the offensive was carried out at Ngarnam, Bulabulin and Bayan Quarters areas of Maiduguri metropolis. “During the offensive and in a counterattack, Ibn Saleh Ibrahim with some of his commanders and foot soldiers were killed by our operation troops. The operation is still ongoing. “The late Ibn Saleh was confirmed to be responsible for the recent assassination of civil war hero, the late General Shuwa through the orders of the leader of the Boko Haram terrorists, Abubakar Shekau,” the statement said.

Residents of Maiduguri said there was disquiet in the metropolis throughout yesterday as helicopters hovered in the skies. “The clash was indeed disturbing and traumatizing. As I am talking to you, over ninety percent of the people in Bayan Quarters and Ngarnam have vacated their houses,” a resident said.

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About beegeagle

BEEG EAGLE -perspectives of an opinionated Nigerian male with a keen interest in Geopolitics, Defence and Strategic Studies

Everyday that I examine the dynamics of this conflict, I am reassured that we are making much faster progress than I ever imagined possible.

In my assessments, I use the trajectory of the Algerian Islamist insurgency to draw my own conclusions.

– The Algerian Islamist insurgency as championed by the GIA(Armed Islamic Group) commenced in 1992; Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency as currently defined(2009 was an uprising) kicked off with the attack on the Bauchi Prison in September 2010 with the Xmas 2010 bombings in Jos and at the mammy markets in Bauchi and Abuja as the highpoints of that first phase.

– Five to six years after the Algerian insurgency commenced in 1997-8, the GIA were still on the ascendancy. At that time, there were several episodes of the throats of people in entire villages being slit in overnight terror attacks, sometimes as much as 800 persons killed in one night ! ; in Nigeria and less than one-and-one-half years after the 2010 start of the Islamist insurgency, we have crossed the tipping point of the most violent phase of the conflict namely, the January 2012 attacks in Kano which claimed 185 lives. The terrorists have been weakened. Even Reuters have acknowledged this fact severally in their reports.

– At the height of the Islamist insurgency in Algeria, suicide bombings never attained the crescendo which Boko Haram have foisted on Nigeria.

– After a decade-and-half of conflict in Algeria, mothers were still marching weekly to demonstrate against forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of young men in Algeria; there is nothing peculiar about anything concerning CTCOIN ops in Nigeria – heavy handed or not.

45 years after the occupation commenced, mighty Israel with its superlative intelligence gathering machinery and hi-tech security forces have not ended the restiveness in Gaza. In 2008-9, 1400 Palestinians were killed for the loss of 30 persons in Gaza in a brutal crackdown such as has never happened in Nigeria. Racism aside – read, stereotypes of the black, brawny and inept brute projected, Nigeria have coped too well in the face of the BH challenge. It is just the case that the average Western commentator writing about any African conflict is a compromised airhead whose views are badly tainted by racial prejudice and scracely disguised contempt.

What has happened in Nigeria which the Western media and HR groups are yapping about? In 2008-9, Israel carried out F16 jet strikes and 175mm SP artillery barrages into the fully built-up urban sprawl that is Gaza. Have Nigeria ever used jets or artillery in the ongoing CTCOIN ops? Our most malevolent critics such as the BBC actually refused to broadcast an innocuous appeal for funds intended for RELIEF aid for the victims of that Gaza crackdown of 2008-9 so as not to offend Israel. With Nigeria and Algeria, why are they are so flippant about abuses? HYPOCRISY and RACISM?

– Imagine for a minute that Nigeria it was which was undertaking the military action which the Israelis are currently pursuing in Gaza? What would the Western media be saying?

– The FG should continue to crack down on terrorists, taking care to minimise civilian casualties and to show a benevolent disposition, hard as it is, towards the conniving locals in the conflict zones. We shall yet overcome.

– All said, Algeria have all but triumphed over the terrorists after 20 years. In percentage terms, the threat posed by terrorists has been brought down to between 15% and 20%, DOWN from a dizzying 90% in 1997-98.